Well, dear family (and anonymous tackers on) this week has been pretty busy. But in my last email I felt that I was just too long winded, especially when compared to Elder Perez, so I'm going to do my best to deliver the information succinctly.
Recently in our mission, and especially our zone, we've been practicing something called the 4 minute restoration. It's essentially just teaching the Restoration, or other lessons, in the simplest way, as you would the first time visiting someone, or on a train, etc. This morning as we practiced teaching the Plan of Salvation that way, and I learned that teaching that lesson, the knowledge of the plan of Salvation, is essential because it tells people why the Savior matters in their lives. Seems obvious, but I think that's what the spirit does, is make obvious things precious.
This week we had a mission tour with Elder Gong, the Asia area president. Did you know that the Asia area includes about half of the world's population? And currently there are like 4 temples in it? But it's growing a lot right now.
They focused on 1) finding and 2) the meaning of the sacrament and 3) the reality of our call as missionaries. It was really cool, especially the Wednesday evening devotional. And on Saturday when we met they had me translate for the natives and summer missionaries. That was actually super fun. Apparently my Chinese is pretty good. No, it's just prayers being answered.
Because of that we were really busy this week. But we still had some cool success. Jacky Ho, a 9 year old, got baptized on Sunday! We had his interview on Friday, which I was slightly nervous for, but it all went well! Hopefully his mom will send the pictures next week, and if all goes well his bother will be baptized on the 23rd.
Brother Chi has been in mainland again this week, so we didn't get to meet him. That's been really tough for me, but I feel okay about it now. I'm just working to get him baptized as soon as possible now. Other than that, we were able to meet with Mr. To this week, whom we haven't met for a while because he was sick. We taught the restoration, and it was simple and awesome.
Other than that, nothing too special.
Mom,
I always really love hearing you guys go to the temple. They have a whole-Hong Kong Youth Conference every year, and it's basically the topic of every youth talk for the next several months. It might seem simple but I know that here at least it has a great influence on the people who attend.
It's been very odd here. I sometimes feel stressed at not having enough time, but today I had the exit interview with President Lam and did some studying before hand, and I basically feel content.
Looking forward to see you all again, though I wish it would come a bit slower!
The White Sovereign of the North
I like that idea of the diet. It seems like it's focused not on restricting your eating but on training you to eat more healthily. We actually did something really similar in our zone training about the 4 minute restoration. We gave people one minute to teach, then 2, then 4. They learned to teach really simply at the beginning, so that by the end it seemed like they had tons of time.
I made an amazing meal this week. I took a rice cooker, and threw rice, chicken broth, chicken, potatoes, carrots, onions, pepper, and salt into it then cooked it like normal rice. It was delicious!
How's the weather been in Utah recently? What are the cats doing? Do you feel different after doing the diet? Are you in the room that the boys used to live in?
Rebecca,
It sounds like your life is just dominated by dancing. There’s a girl in our ward who's a big ballet dancer and the way she runs around always reminds me of you, because she sort of skips and relevee's and prances.
I have to tell you a story that occurred this week in church. The Cheng family gave a musical performance in Sacrament meeting. Brother and Sister Cheng are in their 30's, and their kids are 3 and 4. They sang “I am a Child of God”, and the kids were singing the first verse. It started very well and cute, with the 4 year old girl's head barely poking over the pulpit and the little boy just showing a bit of hair, but right at the chorus the girl just broke down and started sobbing as she sang. The words of the beloved song became more and more garbled by the crying as her mom tried to sing with her to comfort her. Heading into the second verse it seemed for a moment that the Dad and Mom's powerful beautiful singing voices might be able to save it, but the little boy, still very well composed, seemed to decide that the mic was too high and his sister couldn't be heard well enough, so he began to contend with his father for the microphone. Then the climax came when all the babies in the congregation joined with the little sister in sobbing for the finale. Somehow it just got the idea of eternal families across in a way that the music alone never could.
Dad,
I wish we had more time for finding. Recently we only get a couple hours a week to find. If I could stay here and see all these people get baptized, I'd obviously be happy, but I'd also really love to open up an area. That'd just be so much fun, to have 4 or 5 months to go from nothing to baptisms. But I guess there's no rule that you can't do missionary work if you're not a missionary.
It's interesting talking to President Lam, because as a doctor he's got a lot of things very similar to you. He also like physics and dislikes Chemistry, especially organic chemistry. Oddly enough, one of the members over here who I'm friends with was a chemistry major, and he also hated organic chemistry.
David,
Maybe I'll give you one or two more letters as well. Something cool that happened this week was we went to a meeting on Sunday evening, a devotional, and on the way home we got literally drenched. Luckily I wasn't wearing my Korean pop-star suit, but still we literally were drenched. It just turned on the water and we had no umbrellas. The funny thing was on the way home, literally with water dripping down my face, these people around us felt to inform us that "It's raining! You should have an umbrella!" Thank you, I hadn't noticed.
Then we got home and realized that we hadn't closed any windows and our books were all wet...
Joseph,
Congrats on the patriarchal blessing, and welcome to the tribe of Ephraim! That sounds so odd. I recall being a bit disappointed at my blessing, because I felt it didn't have anything specific and I didn't see how it would be very helpful. Even for a good chunk of my mission, I didn't really appreciate it, but especially the last third of my mission, I was really able to experience and know that it's true, it's from God, and what it says is important to me. Study it, and don't discount it if it doesn't seem useful yet.
I forget, where are we living in BYU?
Love you all! Stop counting days!
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